Let's Get Personal

Let's Get Personal

A for-profit company that helps nonprofits raise money is sure to be challenged by the current economic climate. Utilizing a new Internet marketing technique is a big help.

Brian Weiner and Dana Place think they've discovered the pearl that will propel to new heights their company, a data marketing firm that specializes in helping nonprofits and schools raise money.

And it would be a timely discovery, as the fundraising business, on the Gulf Coast and nationwide, is struggling to adapt to the new market realities brought by the economic slump. "This business is a tough sell," says Place, principal and co-founder of the company, Lakewood Ranch-based One to One Gulf Coast. "You are dealing with people that aren't used to spending money to raise money."

The pearl for Place and Weiner is technically a PURL, or a Personalized Uniform Resource Locator. That's a technical term for what is simply a personal Web page that One to One can e-mail to any potential donor.

The web page is both personal - bobsmith.companyx.com - and purposeful, as One to One can tailor the page to meet its client's needs. For instance, it can send a PURL page to all the parents and past donors for a private school that serves as a newsletter, a survey and even a donation pitch. "This has all kinds of way for us to connect," says Weiner, who founded the firm in 2002 with Place after the pair sold a multimillion-dollar printing business they owned in Massachusetts.

The PURL concept has actually been around since 1999 and several other marketing and research firms across the country have begun using PURLs regularly the past few years. But few have honed it into the fundraising tool the way One to One has. For example, the company now sends out snail mail postcards to thousands of potential donors with a One to One designed PURL for each recipient inscribed at the bottom.

And every time a person logs on to their PURL, the company hears about it. Not only from a research and data-gathering perspective, but also from a cool and wow-factor perspective.

But while PURLs now represent a key concept and marketing tool for One to One, the company had been in growth mode even before it - despite the tough economic times. Says Weiner: "Even in a down economy, we should do better because we give the nonprofits something they don't have."

That would be the company's proprietary data marketing software, which allows clients to send out targeted donation requests, as opposed to just sending out mass-mailings. One to One does all the writing, designing, printing and monitoring of the client's fundraising efforts.

One to One, which has 10 employees, surpassed $1 million in revenues last year and is projecting about $1.5 million in 2008 revenues. It recently moved from its overcrowded office in Venice to a 3,000-square-foot office in Lakewood Ranch.

On the Gulf Coast, One to One's clients include the University of South Florida, the United Way of Tampa Bay, the Diocese of Venice and the Naples Christian Academy. It has been doing work for customers outside the Gulf Coast, in Tallahassee and Jacksonville, and in other states, too, such as Georgia, New Jersey and their native Massachusetts.

It recently opened a second office in suburban Boston and Place says once that becomes profitable, possibly by next spring, the company is going to look to open a third office in either Raleigh, N.C. or Atlanta.

- Mark Gordon